Deputy Speaker and hon members, the UCDP welcomes the additional resources allocated to provinces for, inter alia, public sector wage agreements, infrastructure repairs - particularly the 10 priority roads in the North West - the extension of coverage of HIV and Aids treatment and an increase in access to Grade R education. These are indeed in line with what has been identified as key priorities and therefore it appears that national government is putting its money where its mouth is.
We recognise and acknowledge that counting among the development and service delivery impediments in local government is the fact that rural municipalities raise significantly less revenue than larger urban and metro municipalities, while they cater for large populations with collapsed infrastructure. We need to see this recognition expressed in the manner in which revenue and resources are allocated. The aim to boost the economic and social development of provinces and municipalities must be evidenced by the revenue allocations. Further, provinces must be mandated to prioritise and spend larger chunks of their revenue on rural municipalities.
We know that government has raised debt in order to protect the budget baselines and to keep the debt burden manageable, hence provinces are asked to review their budgets. There are two issues that need to be answered in this regard. The first is the long-term event of increasing debt and the second issue is that of ensuring that as the provinces and the departments rigorously review their budgets, they do not perpetuate the phenomenon of funds being returned to the Treasury at the end of the financial year. The UCDP supports the Division of Revenue Bill. [Time expired.] [Applause.]